The Alternate Daleks
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: AU. The Thousand year war on Skaro is at a standstill. Political games run amok despite the state of the war, even as the soldiers on the battiefield are trying hopelessly to push against an equally exhausted enemy with no resources. But a ship that crashes offers the Kaled scientists a way out, and for Davros to finally rethink the Daleks. With no Time Lords, a new terror arrives.


Disclaimer - I don't own Doctor Who. I own this story.

The Idea of this story hit me suddenly; it was a combination of reading a Dr Who comic showing an alternative race of Daleks, and the examples found elsewhere on the internet. I came up with this. Please tell me what you think.

* * *

The war was just as active at night as it was during the day. At night there were regular barrage attacks on both sides, and espionage ran more freely during the night, meaning a step up of patrols to catch them out. It was late and it would be many hours before dawn, but in the bunker housing the Scientific elite of the Kaleds, the cream of the intellectuals of the species, the Chief Scientist was still at work. He didn't really need sleep. His crippled and mutilated form, blasted with nuclear energy which had mixed and twisted with the already latent mutative effect which had become more and more apparent in the genetic codes of both Kaled and Thal over the centuries as both sides continued to fight one another, twisted out of the usual healthy state of a Kaled and reformed into something repulsive and almost corpselike.

Davros had learnt to live with his current physical state. It was hard at first; it was tricky working when you'd been capable of walking and had the use of both hands and arms, but since the destruction of his laboratory in a Thal attack, he'd lost three of his working limbs until all that was left behind was his head, his right arm, complete with hand and his torso. Everything else was gone, replaced by cybernetic linkages that connected him to the chair he lived in. Without the chair he would be dead in just 30 seconds, maybe less. And then there was the pain; every day there were residual sensations of agony, but they were dying down as his life support chair pumped in painkillers and tranquiliising agents into his bloodstream. When he was still becoming used to his new condition Davros had found it difficult to function properly, but he counted himself lucky; very few Kaleds who survived much worse were allowed to live and would more than likely be executed as an act of mercy. It was only because of his importance, his skills as a scientist and his intellect which had allowed him to survive, but Davros liked to think it was his will which pushed him onwards which was the main reason he was still alive. The Kaled scientist had been busy working in his office for the last 4 hours, alternating between studying the new data infront of him in the form of documents and what was on his desk computer. But what really interested the crippled scientist were the two Mark 3 travel machines in the room with him, and the life support tank hooked up to the life support equipment. Inside the tank was a fully grown Kaled mutant, the ultimate evolutionary form.

It wasn't a pretty sight, but to Davros it was the most beautiful proof he had of his theories concerning the evolution and survival of his species. Long before he'd even learnt of the final form of the Kaled people, Davros had had conclusive proof of cellular and genetic mutation for years, leading him to suspect the Kaleds were being genetically evolved because of the chemical, genetic and nuclear weapons being used on Skaro. Out of the two species on Skaro, another person investigating the same thing Davros had been studying for years would've said the Thals had the better deal - Davros had performed the same genetic test on Thal DNA as he had Kaled DNA. Where the Kaleds would eventually become stunted, boneless cephalopod beings with tentacles, some ending in vicious looking claws with a more larger brain which would flourish without a bony skull to hold it captive like a zoo specimen in a cage, the Thals would eventually become a more physically stronger version of their current form with fairer blonde hair than they had today because of the genes controlling the hair color becoming bleached. Davros didn't care what became of the Thals, eventually they would soon be a memory in the databanks of the travel machines he was building, and in the cortex vault where the mutants hatred of all life forms other than their own would the fire be stoked.

The mutants placed and linked with the machines would feel not only a genetic loathing of the Thals, their race, their culture, everything about them, but also the cortex vault would supply knowledge of what the Thals had done to their ancestors. Aside from the stylus held in what was left of his right hand making notes and writing suggestions in a careful script because of the damage his hand muscles had experienced thanks to his accident and glancing upwards to focus his optical sensor on the display screen next to the life support tank, Davros was silent. After making quite a large number of notes, Davros wheeled his chair closer to the life support tank. It also afforded him a closer view of the mutant. It was incredibly calm, unlike other creatures in its position. It knew it couldn't get out of the tank so it saw no use trying to escape, it wasn't like it could go too far without being brought back here, and besides it was being fed from multiple feeding tubes containing protein extracted from the bodies of dead Thals. Davros admired it, not for its appearance, but for what it represented.

He felt more kinship with the mutant in the tank than he ever did with members of his own race, most likely because it was a mutant like himself. Here, he thought to himself, was the creature that would, with his help and guidance, dominate and control Skaro. Here was the being that would be ultimately pure. He turned to face the monitor again, noting the sluggish heartbeat and after checking the tranquiliser intake for a moment wheeled his chair away to return to his desk. He had a lot of planning to do concerning the next generation of travel machine, the Mark 3 was never meant to be the final solution to the Kaled's future problems. The travel machines had to be perfect and so far they weren't. Davros mused on the machines again. Sometimes he wished the ultimate creature was less complex, which would mean a more straightforward form for the machine.

But the Kaled creatures were too large to fit within a humanoid form which had originally been Davros' first hope for the survival of his race, probably the most mobile travel shell imaginable, and Davros was becoming more innovative as the research progressed. When he'd placed the brain of that Thal spy Barran into the shell of the Mark 1 travel machine, Kaled cybernetic technology was incredibly basic and crude, like Davros's life support chariot which he had improved with each year, but after some time experimenting in that field thanks to the brain of that Thal helping him along with where he should focus his attentions he felt he had made a great deal of progress, and in such a short span of time.

The Scientific elite had learnt a great deal about cybernetic life support mechanisms in the last 10 years than the Kaleds had in the last 200. Once Davros had finished with his notes, he began methodically writing out a list of possible improvements to the life support machines kept within the casing. One of them was size, but since the resources of the elite were stretched to the limit there was little Davros could do about it.

Still there was always the chance the elite would find some method to change the life support mechanism into something a little more sophisticated. Then his mind turned to the matter of the design of the machine itself, and he knew he had to try to find an alternative means to transport the future of his people. Using the same type of motive power of his own chariot, the basics of his own life support mechanism was a deliberate act on Davros' part since he had wanted to have something to base on, but it had drawbacks. His chariot had a speed limit, and it didn't allow him to really climb hills and if something went wrong if he tried then he could roll down and injure himself, and his current state could mean any injury could kill him. There were other flaws with the machine, of course, but with the current state of Skaro where the wastelands had thousands of hills, Davros' creations would have trouble claiming their supremacy. Maybe some form of casing that provided movement the way an insect moved? Davros had pondered on that particular idea in the past, but that type of machine would take forever to construct, and besides they didn't have all the technology.

Letting out a raspy sigh, Davros said under his breath, "Hopefully the new casing will bring us closer to greatness." The mobile suit technology was being constantly added and redesigned, so something would turn up. Sitting in his chair writing away at his notes, Davros was just getting into his stride when the door chime sounded. The sound was so surprising to the Kaled scientist he felt as though he'd been woken by a gong. Who was that? A glance at the wall clock told him that he had been working for hours into the night, it was almost morning but all the other scientists were still asleep. Nyder? Davros mused it might be his trusted lieutenant, but he discounted it quickly enough; Nyder had many duties in the bunker and inside the dome, enough to keep him busy for a long time.

No.

Nyder was asleep as well, and the cunning security commander knew better than to interrupt without good cause. Coming to a decision, Davros wheeled his chair towards the door, priming his weapons he had installed in his chair over the years as he drew closer.

"Enter," he said in his rasping, metallic voice. The door opened and a young Kaled soldier entered. Davros sighed mentally when he saw the soldier gulp when the young man laid eyes on him, but he was used to the general reaction of disgust people had whenever they saw him in his chair for the first time. Now he simply didn't care. "What do you want?" Davros snapped impatiently. The soldier made an effort to pull himself together.

"Chief Scientist, a patrol in the wastelands beyond the frontlines and the Kaled dome have found something you should see." Davros sighed again, only this time it wasn't mental. Why was it the military needed him to constantly drop what he was doing no matter what they found? Some new mutation? Davros had sent dozens of scientists out into the wastelands to collect them, and they had only proved he was right time and again, but he had enough on his mind without worrying about this.

"Why bother me with this?" he demanded irritably. His mood darkened considerably when he saw the soldier's eyes wander over to the tank, and swallow at the creature glaring back at him. "Well?" The boy's head snapped back. "Forgive me, sir. But this should clear up the matter for you." Producing a portfolio from somewhere, he handed it to the impatient Davros who snatched it off him. After flicking through the pages Davros's anger disappeared. Slowly he looked back into the face of the soldier. "When do they want us there?" he ground out.

* * *

Davros didn't like air travel; it felt too exposed to Thal attack, but with his life support system having to compensate for every dip and turn with tranquilisers it made his concentration slow down even as he flicked through his own copy of the portfolio. The other members of the elite he'd ordered to come with him were flickering through their own copies, muttering and talking amongst themselves even as they fought aside their fatigue. He paid them no attention, ignored their grumbles about the hour. It was still dark outside, but they could see the dim forms of the aircraft escorting them, courtesy of the Military Elite.

The Military Elite were taking this matter really seriously, and they weren't willing to risk the lives of the scientists for anything. Despite their frustration at the lack of any real weapons, ignoring Davros' statements which continued to go through month after weary month that making one new superweapon after another wouldn't really make any difference, not in the long run. They were too quick to forget superweapons had been used countless times over the past millennia. What did they think caused the wasteland? Not just simple artillery shells, but nuclear ICBMs and chemical weapons. The scientists, however, did not realise Davros with his optical scanner could see every detail of heat radiating off the fighter escort. Finally after his fifth viewing of the portfoilo - it wasn't really necessary since his optical scanner could record every detail and store it in the databanks in his computer, but he had needed something solid to take his mind off the turbulent journey. Nyder was sitting next to him, looking over his shoulder at the pictures until he'd thrown them away.

"What do you think?" the sly security commander whispered.

Sighing Davros handed the portfolio to Nyder in case the other man was as bored as he was. "If this is what its implied to be, then we will have to rethink our stance," was all he said. Nyder took the portfolio, but didn't open it. Instead he looked curiously at his leader, Davros could see the way his eyes were flickering in his general direction.

"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. "Do you remember when I said only Skaro was capable of supporting life? It now seems I was wrong. Some of those pictures were taken at extreme range, showing the scale of that cylinder. But if I was wrong, I will accept it." There was an uneasy silence between the two men after that. Nyder clearly wanted to understand what was bothering Davros beyond the idea he might be wrong. But the security commander didn't realise that when Davros had made that announcement the scientist had been more preoccupied with other matters at the time to really care if life truly existed elsewhere in the universe beyond Skaro.

Truthfully Davros wasn't really concerned with life in the cosmos, he had always been more interested with ensuring life as the Kaleds knew it continued, but life under his guidance. But when Davros had been asked about it, he had only done the most basic check and that was it. When the plane landed and they disembarked, Davros was pleased the soldiers had made an effort to lay down some temporary runway for his chariot. As he wheeled closer to the cylinder he stopped, amazed by what he was seeing. The metal cylinder was gigantic. It seemed to stretch for miles in both directions.

Jutting from the ships' hull were massive rings, but he didn't know what they were for. Some type of engine? He turned towards one of the soldiers, ignoring the momentary fear on the young man's face to ask urgently, "Where are the bodies?" The sight of the metal forms lying some distance away from the spacecraft made Davros pause for a moment, then he carefully wheeled his chair forwards. "Tell me what you have learnt about them?" he instructed. The major shrugged. "We know next to nothing yet. We've only just explored a small portion of that ship, and I do mean small. I don't know what kind of defences that ship has, and I have only a few men with me. But the rooms we've explored so far have equipment I've never seen before outside a science fiction story." Davros turned to indicate the scientists he had brought with him. All of them stood up, gaping at the massive silver vessel towering over them and the three metal men lying on the ground in shock and awe.

The soldiers had placed the runway his chariot would need for a stable journey, yet he still slowly wheeled his chariot closer to the metal men so he could perform a basic optical scan. His optical scanner showed him more data than the average flesh and blood eye provided, his scanner showed him information in the electromagnetic spectrum; he saw the impressive amount of thermal energy radiating from the joints of these metal men, most of it concentrated around the chest plate. The metal men were obviously designed to not radiate the energy considering how much shielding was present around their bodies, but the joints radiated it like a light bulb that had been dimmed down. Davros had the impression if these metal men were still walking the energy would be much higher, but right now the closest analogy would be they were asleep. "Have you received the prefabricated dome?" Davros asked the major.

"Yes, we have."

"Excellent. When the dome is completed, I want two of these bodies placed inside. We shall perform our examinations there." The major clearly didn't look happy about being commanded to do such menial work, but his obvious fear delighted Davros.

"Very well," the major replied. What happened next would forever be a mystery to Davros and his escort. The general theory would be one of the soldiers had touched something, but no-one would be able to prove it. There was a terrible scream, and two of the soldier came running out. "One of the metal men is alive!" "It's walking!" They both shouted. The sound of heaving metal steps and a series of hydraulic hissing attracted everyone's attention towards the tear in the hull of the alien ship. The metal man filled the space effortlessly, the light of the dawn highlighting the creature in dark silver. Davros was barely aware of the talks and shuffling behind him, he was more aware of Nyder taking out his pistol, but his concentration was still focused on the metal creature inside the ship. The creature seemed to be scanning its surroundings, not that Davros could blame it. The creature had been part of a crew of robots and they had now crashlanded, and Davros had no idea how its programmed computer brain would function. The creature's blank eyes, probably similar to his own optical sensor, focused on him.

Davros stayed very still, though he was tempted to activate the electromagnetic countermeasures built into his chair, but he decided against it. He had no idea what the creature was capable of, he didn't even know what it was. If he deployed his defenses, which might not even work in this case, the creature may have a preprogrammed response to attack.

"Scan completed. Where am I?" the creature said at last in a flat monotone. Davros moved forwards slowly so as not to startle this bizarre robot, though he wasn't sure if it was a robot because of the unusual readings that were similar to the readings he'd picked up when he was running his experiments on the Thal brain, but these readings were considerably different. Anyway as the Chief scientist and the most senior figure of authority nearby, he was the most qualified to speak to this creature.

"You are on the planet Skaro. We are Kaleds. I am Davros, head of the Scientific Elite," Davros introduced himself, deciding to give simple information to the creature. "Who or what are you?" The creature stepped out of the ship with a hydraulic hiss. "We are called Cybermen. We were like you once, but we have improved ourselves." So, they weren't robots at all? Fascinating.

"How did you improve yourselves?" Davros asked curiously, though he had a good idea since it was in the name.

"Our planet was broken out of orbit in our home solar system," the newly named Cyberman replied, "and drifted to the edge of space. Our race was getting weak."

"How?"

"Our lifespans were growing shorter. At first our doctors and geneticists tried to reverse the damage with gene therapy, but the solution lay in removing the brain from our bodies and place it within bodies like this one," the Cyberman said emotionlessly.

"Then you are cyborgs?" One of the scientists - Parrin - asked.

"Yes. Our brains are like yours, except certain weaknesses have been removed."

"Weaknesses?"

"You call them emotions, do you not?" One the many things Davros had planned to do with the new mutant Kaleds was introduce chromosomal variations that would remove emotions barring the negative ones. All his life Davros had seen how weak the Kaleds were, not just the Thals. The Peace movements were foolish. Many times over the years, factions had tried to make peace on both sides only to fail because there were too many differences between both species, not to mention so many grievances and preconceptions neither could properly make peace. Davros was willing to accept that once centuries ago both races had once been united before something tore them apart to the point where Skaro itself had become nothing more than a war torn wasteland, both peoples clinging to life whilst mutations were cropping up more and more despite attempts to keep both races pure by banishing the mutants, but just because he was willing to accept that Kaled and Thal had once been the same race didn't mean he wanted the future Kaleds to be held back by weaknesses. The Cybermen might be what he needed to study, if he could persuade this creature to part with their secrets...

But the Cyberman didn't seem to want to speak. "This discussion is irrelevant," it said blandly, "scan indicates you are compatible with Cyber-conversion. You will become like us." The Cyberman walked forwards, hands outstretched. Davros tensed as his optical scanner and the rest of his scanning suite picked up the growing electrical charge in the hands. The Kaled troopers opened fire at once, and bullets ricocheted over the metal shell. It was a futile gesture, but the Kaleds were desperate and continued to fire hoping to damage some part of the armor, but their bullets didn't manage it.

The major himself who should've seen the wasted effort of the attack was firing his own gun at the advancing Cyberman. The creature was closer to the Kaleds now, and the ricocheting bullets were coming dangerously closer to the soldiers. Wincing and cursing at the necessity to get involved because of the foolish behavior around him, Davros summoned all the energy in his defence systems and delivered a blast of energy through the weapon built into the palm of his hand towards the Cyberman, straight to the chest plate. He wasn't sure if this would work, but if he could overload the Cyberman they might be able to examine it properly to learn their other weaknesses later. The Kaleds looked on astonished as the crippled scientist blasted the Cyberman in the chest with a bolt of energy. The creature had slowed down, and let out a terrible wail as it jerked from side to side before collapsing on the ground.

Davros stopped the energy flow to his hand instantly, and let out a deep rasping breath that was almost a wheeze. That had been too dangerous for him to burn so much of his reserve energy, it would take his chariots fuel cells hours to recharge. Slowly turning to face Nyder and Gharman, he said tiredly, "Have...have one of the Cybermen placed in the laboratory for examination, and begin the exploration of the ship. But be weary, we do not know what could be inside that ship."

"Davros, how much energy did you use?" Gharman asked in his usual quiet tone. Davros waved a hand impatiently. "It is immaterial. I will stay in the laboratory to recover. Right now you have a duty to science, and that ship has the key to our future. Go now." As he retreated with Nyder to the laboratory, Davros watched as the scientific teams entered the ship. He wished he was with them, but there would be time for that later. There were so many discoveries, and besides he would be working with Gharman to study the Cyberman. If his guess was right then the Cybermen were similar to what he was creating, and the Cybermen would help him develop his creation to a point where it would be perfect. That was the discovery.

* * *

With three other Kaled scientists with him, Davros was setting about his first dissection of the Cyberman. It had taken the soldiers a while to bring the cyborg to the laboratory because its mass made it quite heavy, and its weight had required a much stronger workbench as the creature's weight had wrecked the last one quite thoroughly. Davros had needed to stretch his already thin patience until the Cyberman was placed on a much stronger bench for the work to be carried out. Slowly gliding towards the bench to give his chariot the time it needed to recharge, Davros surveyed the tools and instruments they intended to use on the creature. "Let's begin with the chest plate," he said. "It appears to be held in place with a magnetic clamp. I'll just release it." Blue light came from the open hole as the chest plate was lifted away, showing there was an oddly shaped piece of cyber technology attached to the underside of it that obviously fitted into the rest of the chest. "Put that away for later," Davros instructed, his attention taken as his sensors indicated the presence of organic material inside the machine. "Flesh?" Kravos, one of the scientists asked as Davros placed his hand inside the chest and pulled a clump of it out. It didn't seem natural to the scientists how shapeless the flesh was. "Yes," Davros whispered, examining it between his fingers. "Artificially grown," he declared, "its a living being, don't forget. It needs to respond like a living being. We have a nervous system, so the Cybermen designed this to take its place in the new suits." Davros played around with the flesh for a second, considering. "We will take some samples of the flesh, place them into different vials. We'll examine them properly later. They might even have a role in the travel machine project." Kravos nodded, seeing the sense in that. "It would certainly improve their performance, and we might even be able to adapt it to work with the computer system to speed up response time." Davros didn't like the implication the travel machine wasn't perfect, but he conceded it probably wasn't.

One of the scientists was poking his hand inside the suit. "Davros, what do you make of this circuit?" Davros followed where the scientist was indicating, and he saw a large black chip inside the armor. It was wired into the suit, connected to various small strands of the same artificial flesh and by some kind of wiring that went to other parts of the armor. "I don't know," Davros said, examining the chip with a single digit. "We will run some tests on it in time," he declared at last. "In the meantime we must dissect the rest of the shell."

The Kaled scientists started taking the limbs apart first, using tools and braces to hold them up straight to properly unscrew the joints. The first limb they took away was one of the arms. When they first unscrewed it completely, a green liquid spurted all over the bench. "Collect as much of that as you can," Davros instructed as the liquid pooled everywhere. Once the arms and legs had been taken off for future research, Davros had the scientists remove the chest armor completely. It wasn't easy, the plate was one of dozens of smaller plates designed to increase the strength and flexibility of the outer shell. As the Kaleds methodically stripped each piece away, more of the Cyberman was exposed. When the last piece of the chest shell had been deposited on a sample table and tagged and logged, Davros glided his chair forwards to take a proper look. There was a ribcage like arrangement that covered the machinery that mimicked the chest build of a typically average Kaled or Thal, and with the armor and the chest plate covering off they could see the lightly glowing sphere in the centre of the chest. The ribcage contained components and what appeared to tanks, all covered a the artificial flesh. "Some sort of power system," One of the scientists mused aloud, staring at the glow with fascination. Kravos was more cautious. "I think we should leave that until later," he suggested, knowing Davros had a mind of his own and would want to examine every single piece of cyber technology there was regardless, but he hoped the crippled head of the elite would see sense and leave it for later where the machine was placed in a more secure unit to properly examine it. Fortunately Davros was more interested in the rest of the hardware than the power source. The limbs were broken up and placed within plastic crates to be placed in storage where other members of the elite would study the under strict quarantine. Davros wasn't worried about some kind of biological contaminant, but it was better to be safe. Slowly and methodically all that was left of the Cyberman was just the chest and the helmet. "We shall leave the head and the chest intact for now," Davros decided, already moving his chariot towards the tabletop covered in the crates containing the pieces of the Cybermen they'd taken apart. "We have more than enough technology here in front of us to make some astonishing advances in our own science." As the scientists got to work examining the technology, they knew Davros would examine the helmet sooner or later.

Safely ensconced within the Kaled bunker in his personal laboratory, Davros was admiring the inside of the Cyberman's head, glancing occasionally towards the brain within a tank filled with the protein-chemical solution needed to preserve it, linked to the same basic life support system as the mark one travel shell though there were remarkable differences. He had considered placing it within a tank that provided speech, but he'd decided against it. The work on the Cyberman dissection was going well, different components had been stripped out of the armor and were being studied separately by other members of the elite. Davros himself was amazed by the work since it showed intellects who knew more about robotics than he and the other Kaleds did. The artificial flesh that made up the central nervous system of the Cybermen was already being broken down. Some scientists hoped to use it to solve certain problems inherent with prosthetics needed for soldiers wounded on the battlefield, others hoped to use it to augment energy weapons, others planned to use it in their computer research to help in battle computers computations for strategy. But for more forward thinking people like Davros they were making plans to integrate flesh of their own design into the travel machine. The helmet of the Cyberman was similar to the travel machine, Davros observed, but because the brains the silver cyborgs placed inside the helmet shells were smaller than the mutants Davros had learnt his people would become, size was standard. In his study of the head Davros had learnt the brain had connections to the black circuit found during the early dissection. But he still had no idea what it was for, though he'd already gathered it wasn't some kind of life support circuit, or connected at all to the life support system. Working in the laboratory gave Davros the perfect opportunity to avoid meeting with the council. His already fleshy and decayed features contorted into a grimace as he thought about the council. They were part of the problem on Skaro, they were as weak as the Thals themselves were. They refused to take action and they held back the military, but even the military elite were weak. That was one of the reasons Davros had never given them any weapons because after a while they simply went back to their trenches and waited for the next attack, and always their generals would spout off about the 'next, great push where we will avenge the deaths of all Kaleds killed in the pursuit of righteous justice' or some other ludicrous nonsense like that. Davros, during his own time in the military elite, had heard many such rantings and ravings by generals ranging from young boys who should have still been in the nursery, to generals so old they should be reduced to protein for food. They were stupid and weak. The pushes rarely came about, it turned out their forces were undermanned, and all they were left with were few troops on the battlefield. And to make it even more laughable, the military blamed everyone around them from the council to the scientific elite for their own inadequacies. Things would probably change now. Davros had seen it before, whenever a new technology appeared the military always fantasised about what they could do with it on the battlefield, in the belief they could finally wipe the Thals out. It had happened before, many times. Nuclear weapons had promised the complete extermination of the Thals, so had chemical weapons - they'd been promised weapons that ate away at the flesh like acid - when all they'd done was give the Thals the ideas to make similar weapons of war. The results were the wasteland where petrified plants and trees lived, varga plants had evolved and roamed the landscape and their thorns transmitted a virus that turned anything living into vargas themselves, slythers which had once been a type of creature on Skaro was now unrecognisable. All created by chemical and radiation exposure, and it wasn't helped by the genetic weapons used by the Kaleds. The Kaled military knew about the Cybermen, and they wanted the advanced weaponry onboard that ship to end the war. Davros understood that. Pressure was already being put on the elite to take the weapons apart to learn how they worked, which was happening, but there was a long way to go before the technology was properly understood by the elite to put it to use. Davros sighed wearily, pausing in his study of the Cyber head to glance through the reports on his computer into the study of the Cyber weapons. It seemed the elite unit he'd assigned to the study of the weapons had already discovered the basic principles of the weapons, but that wouldn't be enough for the council. They'd demand the weapons be given to the military regardless of whether or not the principles were understood or not. They wouldn't care until it was too late that the weapons could and would fall into Thal hands, and then the Kaled military would be back where it started. Thal spies would get in somehow and steal the notes for the Thals own scientific group to copy and duplicate. Hopeless and trapped in a useless stalemate which would continue forever. Coming to a decision and after finishing writing a new set of instructions, Davros opened the comm to send a message. "This is Davros," he spoke into his microphone, "elite unit group 6 to accept new instructions on the computer. That is all." Davros closed the channel, and returned to work.

* * *

"Davros, you were instructed to pass on a new cache of weapons to the military elite two days ago," Mogran, the leader of the Kaled council, spoke severely, looking at the crippled Kaled in barely hidden loathing, a feeling Davros mutually felt but he knew better than to expose it. "Instead you have kept the technology for yourself. Explain why." Davros, Nyder standing faithfully by his side, seethed. He and Mogran were old enemies. "I have not kept the weapons to myself," he said, keeping his voice as deceptively mild as he could though everyone knew he was barely holding onto his temper, but no one reprimanded him.

Davros was highly regarded and feared. "I have merely been trying to duplicate and expand on them as I can. There is a small factory for the weapons being produced already, and I am sure they will be placed in the capable hands of the military but I am concerned," he added leaving the last words hanging as vaguely as he could. Mogran seized the bait, just as Davros had hoped.

"What are you concerned about?"

Davros went straight for the kill. "The Military elite has proven time and again over the years, long before I became head of the Scientific elite, that sometimes they become overconfident with their new armaments, and they're inevitably lost on the battlefield where the Thals can get to them." Silence reigned supreme in the council chamber. His chair's sensors picked up signals from Nyder that indicated the security commander was amused.

Davros had skillfully gotten their complete attention, but he was not finished. "And may I remind you, all of you, that we are not speaking of weapons from Skaro, but of extraterrestrial origin. Who knows how many other weapons we can develop from our salvage of the alien ship? And how many of them can be used by the Thals to destroy us, our city, everything remaining on this planet which is ours? If the Thals had their way they would simply destroy the Kaled people until everything on our planet is cleansed of our presence, leaving only the Thals," Davros didn't pause though he let his optical scanner survey the faces of each member of the council.

They looked frightened as they listened to his words, and like he'd expected they were worried by what he'd implied could and would happen if things didn't go their way. "That ship doesn't come from Skaro. We could never build anything like it in our current state, and much of its science could be used to destroy us. But we, the scientific elite, can ensure that does not happen. Just give us time to study the ship and its technology. We can provide the military and the people with technology that can make our lives easier," Davros paused again to give the council a moment to process what he was saying before he spoke again. If he didn't speak now one of those short sighted fools would speak, and then his argument would be overturned. He needed to say all this delicately and appeal to their sense of greed as well as common sense. It wouldn't be easy since many of them were desperate to end this war.

"At this very moment the Cybership is being studied, a protective dome has already been prepared, and its being constructed under my instruction. Laboratories designed to study Cyber technology and learn ways of how it can benefit us are already being constructed. Why act rashly and prolong the war beyond our power to fight it whereas the Thals will be given the perfect opportunity to wipe us out with the weapons we foolishly handed over to them? Need I remind you of the K-00 nerve gas missile project?" Davros let the rhetorical question hang, everyone in the room knew what would happen if it came to pass, but they remembered the K-00 project only too well.

The Kaleds had once built a new type of missile, one that transmitted nerve gas that was specially designed for Thal physiology. One of its greatest properties was having an inbuilt energy drill which the scientists and engineers working on it around the clock to make it smaller and lighter for use and installation on the missile where weight was a key factor. The drill had originally been conceived as an underground building aid, to cut through solid rock to make underground installations for living space, power generation, water and air recycling and tapping easier...but also to try to build a tunnel towards the Thal dome. The latter idea was scrapped in favor of a missile until the particulars could be worked out. Davros even privately felt the government didn't believe such a plan could work, but he had his doubts and had privately arranged a small group to study the technology under the pretext of finding out what had gone wrong, but to also see if it could be simplified for future use.

It had been risky; the government had canceled and placed a strict ban on the project from ever being reactivated again in case the Thals managed to learn of it and develop a more powerful countermeasure, but Davros had ordered a concentration of a small part of the project, namely the drill. The weapon was in its testing stage at the time of the diasster when the military elite had decided to commandeer it, and use it against the Thals. After that it all went wrong. The missile had worked in case of the drill, but the nerve gas had been too diluted to properly work on the Thals. Davros suspected the gas had merely been in the experimental phase, but the governing council at the time had foolishly burnt the official copies of the project to prevent any more mistakes in that area. Davros had studied the only official records left and found a number of problems, there was even an unconfirmed rumor the gas had only rendered them either unconscious or at least nauseous, but not neutralised sufficiently to not be considered a threat. The good news was the basics of the drill survived. It got worse when the Thals had recovered from the attack. The missile itself was intact when the enemy found it, but the drill was so badly damaged the Thals never managed to recreate it's small size from what was left, but it had given the Thals an idea. They constructed a bigger and more dangerous rocket, fitted it with their version of the Kaled's own drill from as much as they'd been able to recreate though it hadn't been enough, and launched it whilst their artillery and air force bombed the Kaled trenches to keep the military elite occupied. What happened next was one of the greatest embarrassments and setbacks in Kaled history. The rocket had been launched, and it drilled a massive hole into the dome covering the city, where it then released a number of chemical weapons instead of simply the one. Hundreds of Kaleds had died in the attack, but it was probably this disaster which spawned, or accelerated, the development of the mutant trend. The missile disaster had occurred over a century and a half ago, and it was still one that was still remembered, which was why Davros had brought it up. Its effects were evident wherever you looked inside the Kaled city. Before the bombing the Kaleds had had a reasonably high birth rate, now it was considered lucky for a single family to have more than one child. The government had always encouraged families to have at least 3 or 4 children at least, to preserve the family line, and to provide fresh blood for the front lines. The missile had killed hundreds of Kaleds, some of them were pregnant females.

Those who survived were scrutinised by the Scientific Elite to ensure the growth of genetic defects were not present in the new generations. The council had even lowered the criteria, if only to ensure the survival of the Kaled race. It was one of their better decisions rather than simply let their race die, but Davros had his doubts. He believed the council was merely accelerating the inevitable, and that was alright with him. When Davros had first learnt of this disaster he had been fascinated albeit fascinated, it was only when he had grown older and joined the Elite he had been disturbed by how well thought out the Thal attack had been; instead of using a single agent which was easily curable if given time, they had used a host of chemical weapons which gave the Kaleds problems.

The council didn't want a similar mess happening now, especially with alien technology which they didn't understand. Even if Davros had invented and perfected a substance which had the strength of 30-50 foot of reinforced concrete, the Thals could be creating a superweapon capable of causing significant damage to the landscape without causing much damage to the dome itself. But the alien weapons of the Cybermen... Davros knew enough about what they could do, and he knew if the Thals got hold of even one of them, they would launch a massive attack where they'd commit all their forces at once, breaking the stalemate, and destroy the dome. That could not be allowed. Mogran licked his pallid lips, glanced at the other councilors and saw the same fear on their faces. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he spoke in a near submissive tone, "What do you recommend, Davros? Bear in mind we cannot keep putting the military off for long." Davros understood the dilemma.

The military elite, whilst fully under the propaganda of Kaled purity and discipline, could only take so much before they made things far more difficult for the council. "My scientists are presently building the Cyberman weapons. Give them some time to get it right, and then we can give them to the military. That will buy time, but there are other matters. That ship out there," he gestured with his good arm, "is the key to our victory, to our future. It has proven that there is life on other worlds. I admit I was wrong about the existence of aliens. But it doesn't matter really if they exist or not. The point is that ship can provide us with knowledge of new chemicals, new technologies, new alloys. "At this very moment my scientists have discovered computer files and small spacecraft. Let us use those ships to send Kaleds off into space, to the moons and asteroids seen in our solar system. Let us mine their minerals to fuel the war effort beyond the ability of the Thals to fight." Davros was fought there as well, much to his annoyance. "The military elite want those small spacecraft, Davros," one of the councilors interrupted, "they want them to launch an offensive from space." Davros scoffed, openly scorning the limited mind of the military elite. "That plan may work, but there is a better way. We construct bases in space to spy on the Thals, use the moons to house our newer and more powerful weapons rather than simply just bomb them. Our understanding of the basics of Cyber technology is still in its initial stages. We cannot just use their ships because our knowledge of them is basic, and we cannot reactivate any of the Cybermen to teach us how to use them because then the soldiers would be open to Cyber conversion. It's in my reports. The Cybermen remove the brains of humanoid life forms, and implant them into the shells. Its a workable means of creating a cyborg, I've seen the results of their work," Davros didn't mention he had implanted Thal brains into life support shells to help point the way to creating a perfect mobile life support machine. "If we use the ships without properly learning how to use them, then we will lose them because the pilots and engineers do not know how to use them." The meeting went on for another hour, and in that time Davros had won a substantial victory over the council and the military elite. But the council had won a victory.

They'd compromised with Davros to study the Cyber ships, learn how they worked, and use them to travel into orbit to begin the Kaled space fleet, and begin mining the asteroids for minerals and chemicals to use in the war. Davros agreed, though he privately felt the minerals and chemicals could be put to far better use. But he had acquiesced because he'd suggested it in the first place. After the meeting and he and Davros were back in the bunker, Nyder sat in one of the chairs Davros kept for guests. "Do you think we can use those ships?" he asked. "It might take us a while to learn their workings, Nyder," Davros replied as he wheeled his chair around to face his security commander. "But we can use them to construct our first space bases. Patience is a far more effective weapon than a gun, in this case." Nyder pushed that aside for now. "How long do you believe it will take us to understand how they work?" "Answering your question, not long. If we didn't have the working smaller vessels, it might take us a long time to properly study the underlying technology. To make matters worse our resources are too valuable to waste. No, the slow approach is needed here."

* * *

A year after the crash landing of the Cyber ship and its technology, Davros, Nyder and a majority of the scientific elite and some members of the government and the military were standing in the control room of the space launch facility. It wasn't a large room - it was half the size of the main laboratory in the Kaled bunker - and much of the equipment left behind when the Kaled military had left the place was still in use, even if it was decades old. The Kaled space launch facility was really crude despite the program to update its technology for its new role, and far too much of the infrastructure remained the same. The base still had severe damage from earlier Thal attacks, but the general feeling was a more modern facility. It was 6 miles away from the main dome, built into an abandoned missile silo that had simply been closed down because the Kaleds lacked the necessary resources to keep it working. The silo had been repurposed and areas of it had been rebuilt to house the Cyber ships and laboratories had been set up to monitor the condition of both the ship and the crew. Davros looked at the monitor screens on the walls, some of them showed the interior of the Cyber built ship the Kaleds were using. They might have installed padded seats from some old airships and some of the basic comforts living beings needed that cyborgs lacked, but you could still see the advanced technology that betrayed the ships' origins. It had taken the Kaled Scientific elite a year to properly understand much of the technology that went behind the design of the Cybership, but true understanding of how space technology worked was still going on.

Davros wasn't concerned about that; they would solve the mysteries behind it soon enough. All they needed to do in the meantime was get into space to find new materials to keep the war going, Davros's private agenda in that area was known only to a few, but they were powerless to stop him. Deciding to forget the possible betrayals, Davros focused on the crew. The pilot, a member of the Kaled military elite, and a skilled airman, was dressed in the new spacesuit along with the other six. The seven strong crew consisted of scientists, engineers and a pilot. Davros stared at the screen with no small amount of envy and jealousy, but he was realistic enough to know he could not board the ship at the moment; until the new data on gravity came through and was properly understood, Davros was planetbound in his wheelchair. Despite insistent demands from the generals of the Kaled military to get military personnel to the moons in the solar system, Davros had been firm that the mission be scientific in order to test the effects of space travel on Kaled bodies before building bases for purely military operations. He'd even had to give explanations which were frightening to listen to, and in the end the military had relented.

Davros didn't need to turn in his chair to see that they were itching for the countdown to begin, so a new age could begin for the Kaleds. But the chief scientist knew the generals were impatient enough to try something stupid. They'd already tried to seize the new advances of weaponry from the Kaled bunker, though they'd failed. Davros brought himself back to the present when he became aware of the countdown clock ticking away. He felt his atrophied heart beat harder at the thrill of watching this. Space travel had never been one of Davros' ideas for the future of his race, he'd been more concerned about the mutations his people would become before considering such things. The science alone needed for rockets was too much, too much to lose if it were wasted on fuel supplies alone. But the Cyber ship and its technology had given them the means to get into the stars and take the leap forwards to give the Kaled people hope. When the countdown reached zero, the ship left its crude hanger and was launched into the sky. It didn't rise up like a rocket, which was the basic image people had whenever they thought of spacecraft.

No. The Cybermen had experimented with rocket technology long ago, and realised its inefficiency. Too much fuel was lost in a burning flame to lift such heavy material into space, and even then there were so many obvious things that could go wrong. Their solution was to conquer gravity itself. It was such an elegant solution Davros felt a little bit sorrowful it had never occurred to him. When the clock reached zero and the ship silently lifted off encased in its gravity bubble without the fanfare or explosive heat of a rocket launch, Davros listed the number of potential benefits gravity bubble technology could offer the Kaled people. The ship took the Kaleds into orbit where the planet was photographed above; some of the council were hopeful there were areas of Skaro where nature had recovered where there wasn't any consistent bombardment, but Davros had had his doubts from the start. The fact was for the last 1,000 years the chances of finding such a place were remote. When the first images of the state of Skaro appeared, Davros was not sure whether to be discouraged at the thought of the Kaleds planet being nothing more than a ravaged ruin.

There were forests, but he had gathered enough specimens over the years to know most of those forests were dead, the branches were like brittle stone in the throes of petrification. The few oceans of the planet were thriving - with mutations, or the seas were so acidic nothing could survive, or were so pumped with radioactive particles they had become a soup of death. For the oceans where there was life, however, there had been a lot of the chemical and biological contaminants from weapons used constantly over the centuries had mingled with the DNA of various creatures in the seas of Skaro.

Davros had encountered various animals during his quest to truly understand genetic mutation and in some cases see if it could help him save the Kaled race, but even the Elite he headed didn't have the equipment to survey how bad the damage was. The ship sent in orbit did, and the amount of pollution shocked even Davros. It was no wonder there was so much chemical pollution in the air, but the readings from the weapons used everyday did not help matters. Davros went over the data collected by the ship, and decided that when the elite constructed a satellite to place in permanent orbit it would pick up and dispatch information back to the surface for a new unit he had in mind to study the damage done to Skaro's ecosphere, and make and chart projections. Two years after the ship was sent into orbit, others were launched from Skaro's newly established space port and despatched to the various moons and asteroids to begin mining the resources long since promised. Finding and mining the minerals wasn't difficult, but making the council free up the time to allow construction of the numerous industrial complexes to construct the technologies the Kaleds needed to prolong the war had taken Davros 4 days of nonstop wrangling. He had needed to use his new unit, which was gaining quite a lot of importance, to showcase the longterm projections of the damage Skaro would receive if those industries were employed on the planet. Bases and settlements were constructed on the moons after a couple of years of nonstop research to see how the Kaleds and their mutated biology could cope in the harsh vacuum of space; the Cybermen hadn't needed to worry about such concerns, their exoskeletons and construction made them tougher than organic lifeforms, so Davros had known better not to rely on them for guidance.

It took time, but eventually the Cyberships became superfluous to the Kaleds, who quickly constructed their own spacefleet. They were simply copies of a more cruder degree, but as the Kaleds improved their understanding more advanced ships were launched. People were ferried up to the moons and planets to settle there to get away from the fighting. Being in space was a new experience for them, but they quickly accepted it and even enjoyed the prospect of living without the constant threat of war. No more bomb scares, no more spies, no more living in underground shelters, they were finally free to live they way they wished freely, but Davros was already taking secret steps to make sure his long term plans were realised. Drugs were issued under the pretext of ensuring they survived. But even in space the military industry was very strong. The war became virtually impossible for the Thals to fight as the Kaleds began fighting harder and harder. It began with attacks on many of their outposts, and there was even an attack on their dome. The Thals according to Kaled intelligence were taken aback by the attacks because it had come from above. The Kaleds had constructed a small number of orbital weapons platforms which fired energy pulses or missiles depending on how they were customised, and they began launching a series of devastating attacks on the Thals. On the battlefield the long since promised Cyber weapons were finally introduced. The Scientific elite had worked night and day - on Skaro and in space - to modify, reproduce, and improve the weapons many times over.

They'd also taken principles of the Cybermen to introduce to the military. They'd devised body armor giving them incredible strength and power which allowed their users to go hours whereas without them the users would be completely exhausted. The Thals had lost dozens of skirmishers so they had needed to improve their defences. Davros didn't care what the Military elite or the Thals were doing. He was too busy focusing on the Dalek project, he had been neglecting it and only giving it a third of his attention as he was too busy focusing on the unexpected space program and overseeing the scientific projects which seemed to spring up everyday to study the phenomenon in space, things that Davros himself had never even dreamed of. Understandably it took up a great deal of his time to understand what these mysterious phenomenon could do. By the time Davros returned his complete attention back over to the Dalek project he had already gained significant control of the resources in the form of the mines of the planets and the industrial base. With these resources he could finally build a travel shell which was more advanced than the ones he'd constructed previously. As a side effect of the war and of the numerous attacks such as the nerve gas incident so long ago, the Kaleds had been trying to rebuild their population, but now the space colonies were establishing the fears were fading fast.

And the new technologies given to them by the Cybermen and their ship allowed the Kaled elites - both the Military and Scientific - to be more innovative. Davros had encouraged them both to design new technologies, new ideas that he could use to shape the growth of the Daleks. Cyber technology had already shown him numerous directions, directions he had never expected. Robots on Skaro had been theorised for many years. Automated machines, ranging in size from enormous to gigantic, able to perform any task given to them if their design permitted it. The Kaleds and the Thals had longed to build these robots to help them in so many ways. Robots, with built in power sources, could clear away rubble from radioactive ruins. They could build larger underground bunkers for people to live, and they could go deeper into the bowels of the planet where neither species had been able to go, and bring back much more untold mineral wealth. They could also be made very small; an injection of tiny robots small enough to enter living cells could treat numerous diseases and even enhance the body to make it physically stronger. Robotic limbs could also be fashioned to take the place of the organic and be much more stronger and durable. Such things were of course possible, and were one of the few areas of the field that both the Kaleds and the Thals had experience in.

The Cybermen's knowledge of the science had only improved the Kaled's knowledge many times over, and the resources open to them had only allowed the Scientific Elite to experiment better than they had before. Davros added many ideas to the Dalek project, which was rapidly developing. Robotics also had military applications. Drones for instance were used continually from time to time to spy on the enemy, take aerial photographs and drop bombs. Humanoid robots could become lethal killers on the battlefield, much like the soldiers working in the exoskeletal armor which had been recently introduced and giving the Thals a lot of trouble. The nanotechnology which had so many medical benefits could also be a terrible weapon. Nanites could be used to shred the Thals and their internal structures to pieces. Many scientists including Davros whenever he was not focused on his life's work on the survival of the Kaled species had fantasised and even experimented with the idea of nanotechonlogy, seen the benefits of the science potentially at their fingertips, but with Skaro in the state it was and how precious every natural resource was and how hard it was to come by specific minerals they hadn't managed to get very far. Nyder had reassured Davros on many occasions that his spies in the Thal city had the same problem. In the first years of the war it had been the Thals who had had the best of the best, but as the centuries rolled past and both sides had virtually exhausted and squandered their resources in the never ending war effort the Thals had been forced to make do like the Kaleds. Davros was unwilling to let the same thing happen with the rest of Skaro's home system. His people had made far too many wasteful decisions, thrown and squandered so many resources away when they should have been looking towards the long term. He believed that the Kaleds should have begun work on building small bunkers underground centuries ago to prepare for the day when every member of his race would make the fateful decision to abandon fresh air and sunlight just to live like rats underground rather than simply go underground as a last resort. The move underground had only happened when the weapons of the Thals had threatened to completely overwhelm the old materials of the dome which covered their city, but it had taken years before the bunkers had been fully established. To live underground you needed to take advantage of underground water sources, which the Kaleds had though they had to constantly check it for toxins either natural or artifical. You needed to be able to independently generate your own power supply, which they could do. Davros had no intention of letting his people do that with their new colonies out in the solar system. Yes, he agreed they would need to be protected against the Thals.

He agreed that the war had to end with the current Thal generation, but he didn't want the same wasteful decisions to happen again with the unexpected crash of the Cybership. That ship and its technology was the key to the survival of the Kaled race, and Davros had no intention of letting anyone, not Mogran, not even Nyder, come between him and that. With the new industries blooming Davros had so much open to him. He had taken the decision to move so much of his work to a new laboratory complex on one of Skaro's moons. The moon was home to one of the Kaled's newest industrial bases. In short it was the perfect place for Davros to resume his experiments. He had so many things he wished to test. He wanted to see how cosmic radiation differed from the nuclear radiation saturating his home world on the mutated tissue of the mutants. Unfortunately his decision to move so much of his infrastructure into space where he would have the most access to the laboratories he'd been setting up throughout the solar system gave his political enemies a chance to flex their muscles and put forward decisions that Davros had worked long and hard trying to prevent since the crash and even before that. They wanted all work in the bunker the Scientific corps to create new weapons to use against the Thals, and while Davros was willing to do that he really wanted his Daleks to destroy the hereditary enemies of their ancestors, he wanted to prove their supremacy.

Unfortunately Davros had been pushed into a corner and forced to show he was making the effort to truly end the war, so he had organised research groups composed of soldiers and scientists to experiment and develop weapons and hardware out of the salvaged Cybership, and then deploy it on the frontlines. One of the new weapon systems had been an orbital weapon system armed with the same basic weapons the Cybermen had installed on their ship and shuttlecraft. For weeks the satellites had taken their time, surveyed the positions of the Thal city, their munitions plants which were outside the city, and some of their bases before they launched a truly vicious series of attacks. According to Nyder's intelligence reports, which had become increasingly scarce since the bombardment, Davros had learnt the Thals had been taken by surprise. They had never been attacked from above like this before, not even in the worst air raids. Davros had not been pleased by the lack of intelligence from the Thals. Nyder had spent years building the intelligence network in the Kaled and Thal cities, a network which comprised of spies and people sympathetic to the different causes which had sprung up and collapsed over the course of the war. Many of them had been set up in the hopes of getting enough people and breaking away from their race to begin somewhere else anew, but needed the political and military protection of the opposing power to support them. It would never happen, of course.

The war between the Thals and Kaleds had ensured the peoples behind those movements had grown up indoctrinated with the centuries of hatred. But both governments had offered protection anyway - the chance of getting intelligence was simply too great to pass up, and setting up spy networks was too easy. Occasionally the movement groups were given what they wanted, but they always failed to build up their dream of staying out of the war simply because they were locked up or executed. Sometimes they were used for experimentation. The ends justified the means. Davros didn't really care how Nyder's spies got their information, he just wanted it. Most of his operations over the years since his first meeting with the security commander had relied heavily on Nyder's information. It had helped build his power base up and maintain it over the years, too. Some of the information had enabled him to stop Mogran from trying to kick him out. Many of the council had wanted that to happen to him over the years, and always Davros would hand them information he had gotten from Nyder's intelligence network to show how valuable he was. Sometimes Davros had arranged for missions for the Military to mount, and Nyder would supply the information they would be given to succeed. And they did. Such operations strengthened Davros's political power and popularity considerably. As he worked in his laboratory, considering the mess he had on his mind, Davros wondered how he could solve this problem.

As always he considered his options before deciding on a plan. It would be difficult, but it would work. Pausing in his work he activated his computer and his uplink to the satellite weapon systems. He had a personal uplink to the system, which was simple and basic common sense really. There had always been the probability he might need to remind the council how powerful he was even if it meant killing a number of his own people in the process. A small sacrifice and something he had been willing to do, but Davros had other reasons for having the uplink. He programmed a heavy barrage, this time on every square inch of Thal territory, including their city whilst sending a warning to the Kaled ground forces to stay away and let the bombardment occur. Once he was finished with that he went on with his work. His chariot was in front of a number of small screens showing a number of prototype travel machines, similar in technology to the Cybermen and to his earlier travel shell designs, but totally different. Each machine was in a kind of target room where computer simulated weapons were firing at it and they in turn fired back with computer simulated laser beams to give the effect of a pitched battle. The idea was to see which machine would be perfect for the future Kaleds. The only problem Davros had was he had designed quite a few of them, and he was having trouble narrowing it down. One of the screens showed a machine almost the exact same shape as the Mark 3 machine, albeit different with a number of spider like legs with reinforced joints. Davros favored this kind of machine, though he had high expectations with model prototype shown next to it. A spherical machine, smooth without any sign of the vulnerable eyestalk lens, not sign of any tactile organ or singular weapon arm, but capable of independent flight thanks to the same gravity technology which had given the Kaleds spaceflight. But it was vulnerable, it had no means of ground locomotion and if something went wrong and it fell to the ground, the impact would probably kill the creature inside or damage the delicate life support systems. Davros turned to another screen, which showed a similar spherical machine, but it had a red eye and it walked on small metal legs. Silently the chief scientist watched as this travel machine started hovering above the ground of its testing room, and shot higher and fired calculated but strong beams at the test lasers. Davros watched in satisfaction as the prototype flew higher, dodging other pulses which had been silent and inactive so far but activated automatically when the lasers picked up on the loss of the others. Although it was probable another design for the Dalek machine would appear soon, Davros felt confident this particular prototype would be the one.

* * *

Davros's optical sensor relayed the image of the angry Mogran and some of the other officials straight to his brain. He had been expecting this meeting for the last 2 days, but he didn't care if they were angry with him or not. "You had no right to fire the orbital weapons platform, Davros," the councilor said between clenched teeth. Davros's optical unit detected the man's heart racing, and the other signs which showed he was furious. "Why not?" Davros asked as innocently as he could sound even though everyone knew Davros wasn't the innocent type. "The Military has been attacking the Thal territory for the past month with the new weapon systems." "Those were controlled and arranged attacks, not saturation bombardment," a general of the Military elite shouted, unlike Mogran who was only just containing his temper in the face of the crippled Kaled scientist. "You have done it this time, Davros," another said. Davros dropped the innocent act. "You have been planning arranged attacks on the Thals, but where? The Thals, like us, moved their installations underground. Your attacks have merely ensured they are occupied, not defeated. According to the reports I have managed to read so far, the Kaled-Thal ground battles have not intensified as you clearly hoped in the last few weeks, but have instead simply fallen." It had been disappointing for the Kaled military; they had received new weapons and a new form of battle armor which allowed them to be strong enough to fight, and yet as the repetitive battles and small fights took place on the surface, but as the Kaleds had constantly attacked the Thal city and damaged more of the dome those same soldiers had been recalled to help or prepare for a last stand siege. Davros had become increasingly disappointed with the progress of the war even with the new technology and equipment handed to the Military on a plate, but he wasn't really surprised by the response by the Thals. The Kaleds would've done the same if their own dome had been breached.

"Yes, I went far above my political authority, but I believe it was worth it. I was afraid the enemy might learn about the space program and try to find a way to gain an advantage. Yes, I had no right to fire the orbital platforms, but I do have the right to see the war end, do I not?" "We should not show all our hand, that is the point we are trying to make Davros," Mogran, though still angry, had managed to calm down slightly enough for his voice to return to normal. The sneer on Davros's thin lips was terrifying. "It is fascinating," the scientist commented darkly, not even trying to hide his contempt for the politicians in front of him.

"You denounce my effort and yet you continue to show the Thals we now have access to technology and materials which could not have come from our wreck of a planet. How was my action any different? Is it because you didn't approve of it and I simply took the law into my own hand?" It was because he had taken the law and simply ignored it. Davros had done it before, many times in the past as he had worked to get his position, and he would continue to do so. In his mind laws were simply creeds of cowards who merely wished to become powerful and keep that power. Deciding he shouldn't let the silence grow much longer lest one of his opponents gain an advantage he spoke again, this time more gently. "The Kaled people have begun moving many of our population into space, and much of our industrial base has been moved as well. More children are being born every day in space, and yet the Military Elite continues to make plans to conscript them when they have never even seen the battle torn lands of Skaro. One of the reasons for the orbital platforms was to launch a series of new offensives against the Thals from orbit, but another reason was because the Military Elite wished to ensure the Thals could not be in any position to do the same thing and take the war into space. They may have learnt of our salvage of the Cybermen and their spaceships, and they may have stolen some of our new technology, but with the constant orbital bombardments there is little they can do." Davros didn't mention that he had learnt from Nyder that the Thals had learnt through their spies and sympathisers in the Kaled's own government that the salvage had even been made, and that Davros had asked Nyder to make it difficult for the Thal scientific groups to duplicate the Cybermen's technology to give him and the elite a chance to complete the Dalek project. He also didn't mention that one of the targets for the seemingly random bombardments had been an old Thal missile and rocket silo where the Thals were trying to build their own spacecraft based off Kaled designs. As long as the Thal spies in government weren't told anything they could suspect all they wanted. The meeting/argument went on for another hour before, to Davros' satisfaction and pleasure, the Kaled people who had been listening to the meeting protested at Davros' treatment and how he should be given a medal. Davros returned to his laboratory, delighted by the council's humiliation. It had been a while since he had managed to do it, but never on this scale. perfect.

Still he was concerned about his long term future and plans. The Kaled people were celebrating what he had done, calling the council of fools cowards for not doing much the same thing so they could rebuild their homeworld after the destruction of the Thals, but he knew better than to expect living too long. The Kaled people prized themselves on the order that imbued their society as well as their racial identity, and sometimes political assassinations were known to happen. And since he had embarrassed the council many of them were probably thinking along those lines. Moving to the centre of his laboratory Davros became very still and tapped his chair console gently with one of his fingernails. He sat like this for over an hour before Nyder came in.

Davros watched him carefully; Nyder expressed his loyalty to him, without his support the security commander would not be where he was. It wouldn't be beyond the power of the council to bribe him. "I heard what happened. You know the council will try to arrange for your assassination, don't you?" Davros knew Nyder was unsurprised by the fact since he had arranged dozens of assassinations in his time, and knew it was only logical. "I expect nothing less. Truthfully I am amazed they haven't tried something like that over the years, they have had numerous reasons." "What do you plan to do?" Davros didn't answer at once, his mind weighing up the ramifications as they came. "I think its time to accelerate the production of the Dalek project. It might be time for our people to accept the inevitable." Nyder's face was expressionless, but Davros' optical sensor was refined enough to register his response. "Nyder, you know we have no option. Our genetic codes are too irradiated for any chance of reversion." "I know, but I had thought you were still testing your designs." "I am. The design I have for the time being is perfect for the mutants. It will take a month to properly test them in the new machine, but as you know all of the creatures' new prototype travel shells have been in the testing period for some time now." Nyder nodded in acknowledgement. "Now, the council have decided to cease the bombardment of the Thal city," Davros said changing the subject. "They have decided to give the Thals a chance to rebuild for our own military to develop plans. Apparently before my involvement there were a series of planned raids which would have devastated the Thal surface infrastructure. Those plans are now on hold. Do you think you can communicate with the spies you have placed in their city? I need to know what their general plans are." Davros was looking at Nyder the whole time, and his sensors picked up the man's heartbeat. It seemed Nyder was considering different plans to get in contact with the Thal spies he had, and wondering if they were even still alive.

Davros regretted nothing about what he had done, he had only launched those attacks against the Thals simply to get the council to step back and leave his work alone. The thought Nyder might have to rebuild some of his network was a calculated risk, but still regrettable. "I will see what I can do. In the meantime Davros, I believe it will be better if you avoided Mogran and the others. They may be soft cowards, but don't forget they have enough power to see you dead. I would be a poor security commander if I didn't ensure your safety." Davros inclined his head as a show of respect, something he rarely felt as Nyder walked out of the room. Once the Kaled officer had left Davros wheeled his chair towards the room where the prototype he had in mind was stored, his suspicion for what Nyder might do still clouding his mind, but he pushed it aside. There was much work for him to do.

* * *

To Davros and Nyder's relief and delight many of their spies in the Thal dome were still alive. But it wasn't an easy case of simply asking them for information anymore. Many of them hadn't known they were in fact working for the Kaleds, but some of them had realised it over the years. And those particular spies were an important part of the spy ring simply because of their positions in the dome. It had been thanks to them and their information that Nyder had learnt a great many things which had benefited Davros and the Kaled council over the years. Unfortunately many of them were furious about the attacks, and some of them had even refused to work again. They had lost friends and loved ones in the bombardment, and as much as Davros ignored or rejected such pathetic emotions like love, even if he had felt it once or twice over his lifetime, he couldn't ignore the fact many of the spies now refused to work for the Kaleds. Despite that there was a small enough trickle of information which even the Kaled intelligence bureau couldn't ignore. Fortunately the information was keeping the Kaled council busy for the time being. To escape the Kaled bombardment the Thals had needed to drill further beneath their dome, and they had found veins of metal ores which, when refined, would help them get through the war. It got worse. Most of those minerals were being refined already to make up the Thal spaceforce. The Thals prototypes for their space program were crude, but they were effective enough to cause concern. The Kaled council had released the information to the general public and laying the blame solely on Davros for his attack on the Thal city. While public feeling for Davros was mixed, to the scientist it was a frustrating time. He hadn't intended to give the Thals spaceflight.

He had wanted to prolong the war long enough for the Daleks to be developed to finally end the war. Davros came to the realisation he would need to use the Daleks much sooner than expected, but he was a realist. If he didn't use them soon, then the war would take a turn even he couldn't predict would turn out. And it had. The Thals experimentation with space technology, developed much later after the Kaleds, had allowed them to meet their enemy in a new battlefront. While the Kaleds were more experienced with space, the Thals weren't slouches and learnt very quickly. Both sides favored small fighter ships which were fast enough for dogfights, while the Thals experimented with their technology and managed to push the Kaleds further out into the solar system, though only barely.

Davros spent many an hour studying the reports from the front, his mood darkening with each day as he added more and more information into the Dalek battle computer gleaned from the military. While the Thals were desperately trying to push the Kaleds out so they could reach the planets in Skaro's system, they couldn't because the Kaleds had spent years developing this space force and pushing them through one trial after another. One day Davros had had enough of the fighting and decided it was time to allow the Kaled race to ascend into greatness. It was time for the Daleks to ascend. Wheeling his chair into his enormous laboratory, he glided up to a computer console. The console appeared to resemble the rest of the computers Davros had in his laboratory, but it wasn't. It was meant for another task. When the Kaleds had begun experimenting out of desperation the space colonies in the solar system, Davros had studied the way cosmic radiation interacted with their DNA, and he found the radiation was absorbed into their bodies. Fearful that the radiation might reverse the genetic weakness which was accelerating their mutation, Davros experimented even further to ensure the Kaled mutation went through. He found that the radiation wouldn't reverse the trend, but it didn't matter because the radiation would provide even more mutations, but it was easy to play up to other people's fears and he had doctored some texts and test papers which showed the work in a different light, and he had created a number of drugs. Most of the chemicals were identical to the ones he had developed years ago to see where the mutation would take his race, but only a few Kaled chemists who knew what he had used originally would know what to look for. The drugs were introduced to every Kaled living in space, and by now every body was saturated by them. But they needed a catalyst to trigger the mutation. Davros glided slowly towards the computer console, and with a deft turn of a lever he activated the special radiation bombardment which pumped radiation into every location, every home, every factory, everywhere. He also used the console to monitor the transformations. In the streets outside the laboratory complex were a number of Kaleds - scientists and military elite specialists.

They were going about their business when the radiation took hold of their bodies, and the transformation began to take place. Davros watched it with fascination, flicking a switch on his chair that was linked to his optical sensor to record it. He'd seen Kaled DNA mutant before, but he'd rarely seen it happen to adults on a large scale. The Kaleds in virtually every screen began writhing in pain as their bodies started to shrink them down, their hair falling out as tumorous growths started to appear on their skin which began to wrinkle. Calmly Davros activated the specialist robots which would scour the space colonies, and would take them to the production facilities where, depending on their age, would either be placed into incubators or in the travel machines. Once he was finished with that task he looked at the screens again, and saw that many of the Kaleds had realised what was happening to their bodies as their skeletons began to dissolve to make way for their mollusk like mass. Davros spared the time to smile when the security footage showed the Kaled inner council, and he watched as his political opponents writhed around as the tentacles of their new forms began to sprout from their boneless arms and legs as their bodies began to shrink lower and lower before finally settling into their new forms.

"Take them for conditioning," he ordered cooly to the robots. "Have the mutants that we have grown and cultivated placed into the prototype machines at once. They have a battle to win." Davros sealed the laboratory in case any of the mutating Kaleds realised what he was doing to them and tried to stop him; his thoughts turned briefly to Nyder. But then he would make an excellent Dalek. From the laboratory Davros watched as the robots picked up the mutants gently, quite a few of them waved their tentacles in protest, but the robots weren't bothered. They just took the mutants to the incubation rooms which dotted the colonies in secret places, he'd had them constructed in secret, waiting patiently for this day.

The mutants which had been around for a longer time were being transferred to the Dalek machines. He had had years to grow and breed more of them, so now their incubation chamber was a mile long and two wide. "Yes, they have a battle to win." From the monitors he saw the tanks containing the more mature Dalek creatures to the production line where they'd be implanted into the machines. Davros watched as the mutants entered the machines and the cybernetic interfaces were implanted, bonding them to their new shells. "Now my children, begin your quest for universal supremacy." From there Davros opened the route from the production facilities to the airlocks. Opening a communications channel, Davros issued his orders, "This is Davros. Commence the cleansing of Skaro, begin with the destruction of the Thal space force. Special Weapons Daleks form ranks." The Daleks, in their spherical travel machines, rushed out of the airlocks and began their attack on the Thals. Davros watched as the fighting took place, this was the first time his creations had ever fought against the Thals, and he was keen to see for himself how well they would fight. The Daleks size in comparison to the Kaled fighters allowed them tremendous agility, and thanks to the shield technology from the Cybermen, and their adaptability they were capable of overwhelming the Thals, making Davros overjoyed he had had the sense to try out new designs for the Daleks. He didn't dare imagine how the Mark 3 machine, even if he had augmented them, would have stood in a battle such as this.

The Special Weapons Daleks pursued the largest Thal ships, blasting them with pulses and beams of energy, derived from the Cyberweapons and the weapons Davros himself had designed for their use, but the Daleks had other weapons on their side. They used nano drones, small robots, which when injected manually into the Thal ship overrode their computers and caused them to crash into each other, killing the pilots instantly. Or they were dispersed like spores from a fungus and consumed the metals the ships were made from, and all that time they chanted for all to hear them, "Exterminate, Exterminate, EXTERMINATE!"

Davros caught the chatter from the surviving Kaled pilots, some of them were panicking over the sudden presence of the Daleks, and others were afraid of what they were saying, but he paid them little heed. The pilots had no concept of what the Daleks were. But they would in time. Soon they would know precisely what they were. He simply took direct computer control of their fighters and guided them back to the colonies, and he held back the smile which threatened to split his delicate facial skin in two at the sound of their panicked chatter. He didn't, however, stop the service robots from going to meet them, nor did he stop the radiation which still permeated the air. In fact he doubled the out put of the emitters. After sending a few commands to them to deal with the Kaled pilots and force them into the radioactive areas for transformation to take place, but then he would need to issue a similar order to deal with the rest of the Kaled people on Skaro. The city was still their's and it was still occupied, but the Military elite had put in a large garrison to protect it. It was only blind luck the city hadn't been destroyed by the new weapons the Thals had. He checked the status reports on the new Daleks that had been taken to the incubation rooms. Half of them were ready for implantation already, it just needed Davros's order. But he didn't do it. They would need time to fulfill the requirements of the breeding cycle, but the mutants created out of the women and children would need time, besides the more mutants created for the next generation the better whilst samples of their cells taken would allow new clones to be grown in bulk whilst new bloodlines would be created. The female mutants and the males would be injected with a new drug which would stimulate their libidos and allow them to breed incredibly fast. It had taken Davros time to come up with the right genetic manipulation technique to make the female Daleks breed many embryos, but he had managed it. As soon as the females were finished breeding they would be implanted. Davros sent in an order to the service robots to immediately transfer the males which had finished their part in the process.

They would be the frontline soldiers against the Thals. When the space battle was finished he ordered the force leaders to attend to him. When they flew into the room, he studied them closely. "We have much work to do," he began. "As soon as the next generation of Daleks is assured, we shall begin the invasion of Skaro, and complete the war our ancestors should have won centuries ago."

The Daleks chanted, "We shall destroy the Thals."

Davros nodded in agreement. "Yes. In the meantime we have much work to commence. The Kaled pilots have been taken to the incubation chambers where they have became Daleks themselves., but there are still Kaleds left behind on Skaro. A small detachment of Daleks who took part in the battle will travel to Skaro immediately with a space craft with incubators. I shall activate the radiation screens inside the Kaled dome and their mutation will be finished by the time you arrive." "What of the Kaled troopers outside the city?" "Simply round them up, take them to the dome. Once you have performed this task, you will begin the Thal purge. If there are survivors we shall simply enslave or exterminate them," Davros said. "Very well. Prepare for the Kaled mission."

"We obey," the Daleks intoned, but Davros was not finished, and he started to glide back to the console to send the command signal to the Kaled dome on Skaro to activate the radiation screens to commence the Kaled transformation. "I shall prepare for my role as the emperor of the Daleks."

* * *

In the following year the Daleks travelled down to Skaro. They found their Kaled ancestors mutated and they forced them into incubation rooms where the breeding program would take place at once, while genetic samples were taken and stored for future embryo growth. While many Kaleds remained in the open for some time, eventually they were captured and turned into Daleks. They had no idea why communication with the city had been cut off, of course, but they knew the spherical things which descended from the skies was responsible. There were many theories, but the harsh reality was much, much worse.

In the coming year the Thals were totally defenceless against the onslaught as the Daleks rained fire down, the intensity of the firepower more than a match for the emotional state of the mutants, fired up by the cortex vaults contained within their casings. Much of it was the Thal's own fault; they had expended too much of their space hardware in the battle with the Kaleds and then later the Daleks themselves, but they still put up a fight against the Daleks as they relentlessly divebombed the dome. Thousands upon millions of Daleks, including Davros who was now safely ensconced in a spherical shell much larger than the others, took part in the battle, and decimated the Thals, who tried to surrender but Davros wanted them all exterminated. After the massacre the Emperor turned his attentions to the rest of Skaro. He ordered the dome removed, and minerals from space to be used to expand the city in all directions, and even to turn the Thals own dead strewn city into a part of it. He had visions of the city covering half of the continent.

It would take time for the city to be finished, it was going to be mightier than any city built on Skaro, so the Dalek leadership would take place in space. Two years after the war had ended, the city on Skaro was under construction, the Emperor himself gazed upon the mighty shipyard complex where the Daleks were experimenting with the hyperdrive technology scavenged from the Cybermen. The first test ship, augmented with the combined collective of all the Daleks, was under construction and would be launched in the next 2 years, but the Emperor had learnt the value of patience long ago. Once the ship was launched, others would be as well to jumpstart the next phase of technology. The Emperor was willing to start small and basic which in time would allow the Daleks to move across the galaxy. He had plans for ships to explore the local vicinity of space, develop and compile charts of the nearby races and create plans to eradicate or conquer them. It was a large undertaking, but the former Davros, linked to the travel shell, was ready for it. Soon his race would found a mighty empire. But they would need to become stronger and stronger. New homeworlds would need to be found, new resources. When the time was right the Daleks would ascend.

To supremacy.

* * *

What do you think? I am planning to write a short series of short stories and posting them, showing this new reality's Daleks as they do what Daleks do. Do any of you have any suggestions? If so please call me.

Ciao.


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